Politico is reporting that Democrats are backing off their threat to oppose a year-end spending bill if it doesn’t include a DACA amnesty at the risk of being blamed for a government shutdown.
Democratic leaders eased their tone in recent days, and aren’t demanding that DACA be part of the year-end spending bill. Despite pressure coming from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to grant a permanent amnesty to all illegal aliens who received the unconstitutional DACA amnesty under Pres. Obama, Congressional leadership has become less aggressive in their push for DACA.
In an effort to salvage any possibility of a bipartisan negotiation, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, among other Democratic leaders, have adopted less aggressive rhetoric when addressing DACA, understating it as just one of several issues on their list of priorities.
"Democrats are not willing to shut the government down, no,” Rep. Pelosi said late last week. “As I said, that is part of our priorities that are listed here, and there may be some more."
Democratic leaders did not overemphasize DACA as a central focus, last week in their meeting with President Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell regarding their priorities for the spending bill.
Speaker Ryan said Tuesday that an amnesty for DACA recipients would not be included in the year-end spending bill. With Republican leaders in no rush to pass a permanent amnesty, Democrats are resolving to hold off DACA demands till January. Both Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have suggested that brash demands aren’t the best way to negotiate legislation with Senate Republicans.
"Obviously, I want a Dreamers fix by the end of the year,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview. “I’m not sure that it serves our purposes to draw hard lines in the sand in the middle of negotiations."
Despite backlash from pro-amnesty activists and lawmakers, Democrats are retreating in their fight to pass an amnesty by the end of the month, with only a handful of Democratic Senators refusing to support any year-end spending bill devoid of a DACA deal.
For more on this story, see Politico.com.
